Last nightat the industry that I work for ,we found some liquid-tite that was bubbled and burnt like a fried egg. The wiring inside was also toast. The junior man,who is actually older than I, said it looked an arc welder had burned it up. I had often heard of this but never saw it. But it makes sense. We then looked at what was being welded and found it sitting on wood blocks on a steel deckplate,knowing it was insulated we then looked for the cause. The only way we found it could have happened was that the stinger, electrode holder, had the plastic insulator broken off the nose. Could this be possible? Both of us say so, but the General foreman says " no way!" Just wondered if some of the Industrial Maintenance guys have had similair occurences.

Wowâthat brings back memories. Found the same thing a highschool ag shop. It was a 3-foot span of Âž-inch liquidtight with itâs grey vinyl jacket âdrooledâ off. The students had clipped the welder ground clamp on an I beam, and one kid had placed his work on an outdoor bandsaw âtable.â Thatâs when I found out that Â˝- and Âž-inch UL-listed liquidtight has a helical ground conductor the size of 18AWG. The otherwise similar non-listed material had a piece of string in place of the copper(!) The circuitous ground-return/bandsaw/welding table had been used like this for several weeks previous. [The instructor wasnât too happy.]

The one thing worse is a lazy welder who hooks his ground on the wrong end of a conveyor and strikes an arc in just the wrong placeâit can destroy heaps of ball bearings in minutes.

I work for a railroad. We had a situation where two of the metel monkeys got their "work" leads all tangled up and just grabbed a clamp and stuck it to the locomotive they were welding on. They were working on seperate tracks in the same building. When the leads got straightened out, sure enough the "work" leads were backwards, so the welding current was going through the locomotive, into the track, out to the switch where the tracks came together, and back up to the correct lead. Figured that the ground path was just short of a quarter mile long. Fortunatly for them, at 10 tons per axle, there was enough weight on the bearings that no damage was done to them as the electricity tried to find its way to the track.Trainwire

Hey. Trainwire. My Dad retired from the railroad, he worked for the MOPAC befor it was UP and actually retired from the UP. Almost took a job in the same shop he was at. Oh and to clarify, the outside of the seal tite was burned and the way it was twisted it burnt the wires inside. Thanks, now I can show the General foreman I'm not lying or crazy.

If not, try checking through the post archives for said topics and [if you feel the urge to type], add some comments.

Scott S.E.T.

P.S. Long time Railfan [So. Cal. carriers, like ATSF (BNSF now), SP and UP]. Had a Friend who worked for ATSF, that did Amfleet service [Amtrak commuters with the EMD F40PH Locos pulling the 1/2 cans], and one brother-in-law who was an Electrician for ATSF, who went to Amtrak in the late 70's.

Amazing where you'll find railfan.Scott:Since I have been a member of the site for only a few months, I have no idea of which postings that you are referring to. The 32volt lighting system under "violation photos" is some of the stuff that I work on.I would love to read through the postings if you would give me a hint as to where I should look for them.